Finance Minister Mihály Varga said Hungary is the EU member state paying the price for eliminating the need for border protection within the bloc.
Minister Varga told news portal Index that as the minister in charge of the central budget, late last year he had turned to the EU’s budget and administration commissioner, Johannes Hahn, with a request for increased EU financing for Hungary’s spending on protecting the external border, which had received “a positive reaction”. “The commissioner accepted my invitation to visit the border region in the first half of this year,” Varga said. “But what we are seeing now is a constant backing out” by the outgoing commissioner, who proposed that their talks should instead focus on the priorities of Hungary’s EU presidency. The finance ministry in response accepted that Hungary’s EU presidency should provide the basis for talks, indicating to Hahn that stopping illegal migration was also among the key topics on its agenda in addition to the EU’s competitiveness and demography issues, Minister Varga said, adding that Hahn then cancelled his visit. “We created a clear situation which the commissioner no longer wanted to face, and in the last minute he abandoned finding a solution to a serious problem for Hungary,” he said.
Minister Varga added that the fact that Hungary was bearing the burden of the EU’s border protection costs violated the principles of solidarity and the fair share of responsibility within the bloc. He said that instead of an 80 billion forint fine, Hungary should receive a 700 billion forint (EUR 1.8bn) compensation for its expenditures. The minister said the situation was not only unfair but also a serious burden on the state budget, noting that the country’s border protection spending was “insignificant” when compared to the 67 trillion forints earmarked for total spending in the EU’s common budget this year. Asked whether Hungary’s EU presidency could “bring about a turnaround” in settling the issue of Hungary’s spending on border protection, Varga said that it might come up at Ecofin meetings scheduled for the autumn.